The present invention relates to a safety closet rod and in particular to a closet rod which is yieldable under a predetermined weight.
Unfortunately, there are several instances wherein closet rods, mounted in the conventional manner, pose a hazard to the safety and well being of the persons using such facility. For example, mentally ill persons have been known to use such rods to hang themselves in an attempt at suicide. As another example, even normal children, who often play in closets, inadvertantly become entangled in the clothes and unwittingly hurt themselves as a result. It is, therefore, advantageous to provide a closet rod installation which is capable of yielding at a predetermined weight or force applied thereto so as to prevent such tragedies.
An attempt at such an installation was made in U.S. Pat. No. 4,043,528 which provided a loop shaped bracket formed of a bent leaf spring fixedly held to the wall and further biased by a compression spring. The end of the clothes rod was inserted in the loop and on the application of an excessive force caused the leaf spring to bend out of shape allowing the rod to fall out of the loop onto the floor. It is not believed that this construction had any significant commercial success as the construction appeared relatively complex and costly as well as relatively difficult to install.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a yieldable or "breakaway" closet rod system which is simple and inexpensive to manufacture, easy to install, and which is effective at all times to yield at a given predetermined weight.
The foregoing objects and advantages will be apparent from the following disclosure of the present invention.